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Friday, October 18, 2013

Finally, a Finish: Love on Nantucket

You may recall a few weeks back that I finished a quilt top from Tula Pink's "Love" quilt pattern, and that it was destined for a friend's wedding on Nantucket. Against every one of my natural inclinations, I finished the quilt on time, and even delivered it to the couple a few days before the wedding! (I forgot my camera on my two-week trip! :( So almost all of these are from my phone.)

I pebble quilted the inside of the letters, then did wavy rays radiating out from the center, matching the thread in each quadrant. Very, very easy to quilt, and I think a good match for this design. I did, however, do something very stupid--I forgot to lower my feed dogs, so I got some bunching on the back. I'm actually surprised it didn't mess things up worse, but it probably made me work a lot harder at quilting it than I needed to. :) Clearly, it had been awhile since I FMQ'ed something!

This was my first time pebble quilting, and I was surprised at how easy it was. It really is a wrist workout (especially when you don't lower your feed dogs...) but to fill in small spaces like this, it's amazing, and I'll definitely do it again. It looks so cool!

I found the navy link fabric in my stash, and had just the right amount for this quilt. I couldn't believe how well it worked out! The wedding photographer even used the back of the quilt for one of his photos. :)

Oh hey, this is the house where the Maid of Honor and I got to stay for the whole week by ourselves. Pretty tough, right? The bride's family was INCREDIBLY generous to us. I'm good friends with the MOH (I was in her wedding as well), but now she lives in Philly and I don't get to see her much, so it was awesome to have a week hanging out with her in this terrible place:

Yeah, Nantucket is one of the best places I've ever gone. I highly recommend it!

Boyfriend unfortunately missed the wedding due to a randomly cancelled flight by United (they were not our favorite airline that day!) though he did make it to most of the reception. The next week we hung out in Boston and also traveled up the coast to Maine, which was gorgeous and resplendent, and another place I can highly recommend.

This is in Acadia National Park from the top of Cadillac Mountain. It was pretty stunning. It got really cold, cloudy, and windy that afternoon, so we were glad we chose to go up there first. After we got tired of taking pictures of God's natural beauty, we decided that the best thing to do would be to take senior photos of ourselves on a mountain top, as one does.

In Boston, we saw all of the historical sites, including my favorite, the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world. It never lost a single battle, was one of the first six ships commissioned by George Washington, and revolutionized boat-making because there was better/more available timber in the U.S. than in Europe, which was pretty deforested by that point. Touring the boat is free, and the tour is always really fascinating. There were a lot of British tourists in our group there, and I always wonder if it's strange to come to Boston and hear about the one time that the U.S. was super mad at Britain to the point of leaving their country, because (aside from the War of 1812, which no one remembers) we've gotten along quite well with them ever since. It's such a weird relationship. But I digress. :)

I got to go on the boat tour twice in two days, because right after boyfriend left, two of my college friends who live on the East Coast came up for the weekend, and we re-toured some things. Good thing Boston is an interesting city! Our favorite accidental find was a 5k called "The Running of the Bridesmaids" wherein women dressed in old bridesmaid dresses for the 5k. I was sad I didn't know about it before--I just so happened to have a bridesmaid's dress along!

It was a really incredible two weeks, and our timing was so fortuitous-- it was right after peak tourist season, but the weather was still great. And the day after I arrived home, the U.S. government shut down, and a lot of the places we went (the boat, the National Park in Maine) were closed! Sometimes, you are just lucky, and I sure was with this trip.